UPI down across India: Payment failures hit Google Pay, Paytm
As of now, the National Payments Corporation of India (NPCI), which operates UPI, hasn’t issued an official statement regarding the outage.
Digital payment platform Google Pay has started imposing a convenience fee on bill payments made with credit and debit cards.
This shift ends the era of fee-free transactions for millions of users paying for essential services like power and gas.
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As per Google Pay’s website, the newly introduced fee ranges from 0.5% to 1% of the transaction value, in addition to the applicable Goods and Services Tax (GST).
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Transactions made directly through UPI-linked bank accounts remain unaffected.
Notably, the change follows Google Pay’s earlier decision to impose a Rs 3 convenience fee on mobile recharges over a year ago.
In the UPI market, Google Pay currently holds a significant share accounting for nearly 37% of transactions, second only to PhonePe.
In January 2025, the platform processed transactions worth Rs 8.26 trillion.
In the same month, UPI transactions totalled 16.99 billion, amounting to Rs 23.48 trillion in value. This represents a 1.55% increase in transaction volume and a 1% rise in value compared to December 2024.
PhonePe also levies charges on credit and debit card transactions for bill payments, including water and piped gas bills. Paytm, another major player in India’s digital payments space, imposes platform fees ranging from Rs 1 to Rs 40 on UPI recharges and bill payments.
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